A short rant in reaction to Ron-hate
I
love Ron. I adore Ron. I want to wave little "Weasley is my King"
flags, ones with no sarcasm whatsoever. He's not my favorite character, but
he's close, and the only reason I don't read fanfic about him is that no one
can get him as perfect as JKR can, and he's prominent enough that I can always
go back to the books for my Ron-fix, the way I can't with Remus and Sirius and
James.
Every time someone describes Ron as average, I want to go ARGH NO RON IS
EXTRAORDINARY! I mean, honestly. Ron is twelve years old, a first year,
and he beats his seventy-year-old teacher's gigantic chess set. I assume that
McGonagall is very good at chess, considering she makes it her defense for the
PS/SS, and Ron, a twelve-year-old, beats it. And by sacrificing
himself. He's been watching the white chessmen brutally hit the blacks
practically the whole game long, and he knows what's coming if he does it, and
he does it anyway, even though Harry and Hermione try to talk him out of
it.
Obviously, yes, Ron is average with his schoolwork. But then, so is Harry, and
when compared to Hermione (or Ernie MacMillan!), practically everyone is
average, and you know, I can't really fault Ron for not being all that
interested in much of his schoolwork (nope, no senioritis here. *whistles
innocently*). Besides, it's not like being average in school equates to being
average everywhere. Ron's average at school because he concentrates on other
things, like, you know, his best friend who the most feared person in Britain
(if not the world) is personally trying to kill. And making said best friend
laugh, because Ron is quite good at that, and if anyone needs a laugh, it's
Harry.
And of course, that famous line, "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have
to kill us too!" That was what made me fall in love with Ron. There he is,
trying to stand on a broken leg, facing the man who broke his leg in the first
place and who is, to the best of his knowledge, a man able to kill thirteen
people with a single curse and betray his best friend, his best friend's wife,
and his godson to Voldemort without compunction, and he stands on his own
feet, despite the pain he must be in due to his broken bone, and says
that Sirius will have to go through him to get to Harry. My GOD. I like to
think I would have been able to do the same, but I doubt it. Ron does it
without thinking about it. That just amazes me.
Ron's just so human. He's passionate and loyal and eager and lazy and
stubborn and has self-esteem issues and sometimes I can identify so clearly
with him, and just oh my God I love him. He's not super-logical and books-smart
the way Hermione is, and he doesn't have this scary destiny that Harry does,
but how anyone can call him ordinary or average just because he's not what his
friends are (and there's a reason for that, you know--it's the Trio, and each
makes up what another lacks), but he's funny, and adorable (I've always found
the belching slugs scene one of the cutest in the series, despite the slugs)
and just...just...ineffably Ron, and I love him for it. There's a reason
he's what Harry would miss the most, after all.
Weasley is my King. *g*